Data Access Objects (DAO)

Visual Studio .NET 2003

Note on Environment Support for DAO. In Visual Studio .NET, the Visual C++ .NET environment and wizards no longer support DAO (although the DAO classes are included and you can still use them). Microsoft recommends that you use OLE DB Templates or ODBC for new projects. You should only use DAO in maintaining existing applications.

The Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC) supplies classes for programming with Data Access Objects (DAO). These classes are distinct from the older MFC classes supplied for programming with Open Database Connectivity (ODBC).

Data Access Objects (DAO) provide a framework for using code to create and manipulate databases. DAO supplies a hierarchical set of objects that use the Microsoft Jet database engine to access data and database structure in:

Microsoft Jet (.MDB) databases

ODBC data sources, using an ODBC driver

Installable ISAM databases, such as dBASE and Paradox, which the database engine can read directly

To begin learning about the DAO technology, see the topic "Data Access Objects Overview" in DAO Help.

Tip From any of the MFC help topics in this documentation set, you can get to a topic called DAO: Where Is..., which helps you navigate online to the topics that you need. The topic is always available via the See Also list at the bottom of the topic window.

DAO Database Tasks

These tasks are based on the MFC DAO classes. For information about using DAO without MFC | see Data Access Object Hierarchy Chart and the topics that follow it in Microsoft Data Access Objects | the programmer's reference with the DAO Software Development Kit (SDK). Open the DAO help file to locate these topics.